Flexible Citizenship and Fragmented Identity in Postcolonial Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a city of contrasts, where neon lights glow over the streets steeped in colonial history and the looming presence of China. This hybridised space reflects the anxieties of cultural fragmentation, where identity is fluid, yet fractured, as individuals struggle between the British colonial legacy and the growing presence of the Chinese government. In this paper, I will explore the concept of flexible citizenship in Hong Kong, a condition wherein individuals strategically negotiate multiple identities – British, British Overseas, Chinese – while rarely claiming the identity of “Hongkonger”. Drawing on Aihwa Ong’s (1999) theory of flexible citizenship, I will explore the darker side of this fluidity, revealing how it fosters alienation, displacement and loss of identity. Through a close reading of Xu Xi’s Dear Hong Kong: An Elegy for a City (2017), I will investigate the psychological and sociocultural consequences of such fluid belonging. I will pay particular attention to elements within the text like British education and Chinese impositions that reflect a sense of alienation and loss of identity. Xu Xi’s narrative articulates the longing for escape, disorientation, and the realisation that colonial structures provide an incomplete framework for making sense of the world. This study considers how the impact of the colonial past and the growing presence of China continue to shape Hong Kong, fostering a generation that simultaneously embraces and rejects its own birthplace. While Xu Xi’s reflections highlight the city’s fractured selfhood – embodied in the bauhinia, an origin-less flower – they also gesture towards alternative ways of imagining Hong Kong’s identity beyond mere fragmentation. While flexible citizenship offers economic and political opportunities, it also engenders impermanence, displacement, and estrangement. Ultimately, this study argues that, far from being a liberatory mechanism, the pursuit of flexible citizenship exacerbates existential anxieties, reinforcing Hong Kong as a space of profound uncertainty.